As personal computer prices have decreased, and the number of personal computers purchased has increased, many households and small businesses find themselves with more than one useful computer. Often this results in individuals with their own machine, who would otherwise be forced to share a computer. While it is beneficial for family members and employees to have their own computers, information sharing between the computers becomes more problematic. For example, in a family with only one computer, a report being written by one of the children would be located on that system only. However, in a family which shares two or more computers, the report might be located on a computer which is currently in use by a sibling, or different versions of the report might be located on different machines. Similarly, a business with more than two computers may have some records stored on each machine, and may even have different versions of the same record on each machine.
One solution would be to network the computers together such that the data stored on each computer is available to every other computer. Thus, one member of the family could have access to their report without regard to which machine it was last edited and saved on; and employees can have access to every record regardless of which system is currently available for them to use. Networking also shares personal computer peripherals. For example, while new computers were often purchased to take advantage of increases in processing power, printers have not experienced such dramatic improvements, and were not upgraded as often. Therefore, while many families and small business may have two or more computers of varying age and speed, they often only have one printer. A computer network allows each computer to have access to the printer. Similarly, other peripherals such as backup storage devices and scanners, can also be shared.
The recent trend towards affordable fast Internet connections is also increasing the need for families and small business to network their computers together. Generally, fast connections to the Internet and World Wide Web were reserved for larger businesses who could justify the high cost of such connections. More recently, as the cost of high speed Internet access has decreased, more small businesses and families can afford high speed Internet access. Access to the Internet through the high speed connection can be shared through a computer network in a similar fashion to the sharing of peripherals.
Because of the existence of a number of different networking technologies, each with its own benefits and drawbacks, families and small businesses often need to integrate two or more different types of networks. A family may have an Ethernet network connecting two ore more desktop computers together and sharing a printer and a high speed Internet connection, and they may also have a wireless network connecting a laptop to one of the desktop computers. The difficulty arises when the laptop user wishes to gain access to the printer and high speed Internet connection. Generally, such home and small business networks rely on simple, if any, networking hardware, and can be connected by a simple cable and software on the computers themselves. However to combine the wireless network with the Ethernet network, the family would either have to purchase, or implement through software, a router or a bridge to connect the two networks. Routers are often difficult for an average computer user to set up properly, exposing the user to networking complexities. Bridging is a more simple solution, requiring little or no configuration by the user. When two network segments are connected with a bridge, the computers on each segment perceive the bridged multi-segment network as if it consisted of only one segment. However, to software on the bridging computer, the segments still appear distinct and separate.
Because the bridged segments still appear as separate on the bridging computer, software components on that computer may operate inefficiently. In fact, such network components may not even operate properly on a bridging computer, or may require a complex and tedious setup. For example, if the interconnected network used the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and the TCP/IP network component on the bridging computer was bound to both network segments, it would require that each segment be considered as an separate IP subnet. However, a major benefit of bridging is that the entire multi-segment network can be treated as a single IP subnet. Hence the bridging computer would have to bind its TCP/IP network component to only a single network segment, relying on the bridge to transfer packets to the other segments. However, if the network segment to which the TCP/IP component is bound is a slow network, the TCP/IP component will not be able to take advantage of the faster network segments, slowing the entire interconnected network. Furthermore, the processing of outbound packets would be inefficient because the TCP/IP component would transmit the packets onto the network segment to which it is connected, even if the destination computer is not on that network segment. Similarly, inbound packet handling would also be inefficient because the bridge would have to transfer every packet destined for the bridging computer from the network segment on which it was originally sent to the network segment to which the TCP/IP network component is bound. This wastes bandwidth and creates an inefficient network.
Additionally, because network components are needed by higher level software to perform tasks such as web browsing, and saving and editing files across a network, the only alternative to the inefficiencies described above is for the user to avoid using the bridging computer for anything other than the most rudimentary tasks, thereby eliminating the need for many network components. However, most families and small businesses do not have the resources to dedicate an entire computer to act as a bridge between network segments. A solution, therefore, is required which would allow network components on the bridging computer to perceive the bridged network as a single entity, allowing families and small business to continue to use the bridging computer without restrictions.